At 12:01 this morning, Jan 5th, Illinois started accepting Concealed Carry permit applications

[DonP]

The Illinois State Police started accepting online applications this morning from any qualified applicant for its Shall Issue concealed carry permits. The law was written by our downstate Dems and passed by the Dem speaker and Dem Senate president, including an embarassing massive override of a Quinn amendatory veto. They expect from 400,000 to 500,000 applications in the first year. But based on the recent Wisconsin and Ohio experience some think that may be a low estimate.

The permit for residents is $150 and 16 hours of training from approved instructors using an approved course outline. That includes a minimum 70% hit rate at 5, 7 and 10 yards on a B-27 FBI style target for range qualification. Military service, or a qualified NRA Basic Pistol course qualifies for 8 hours credit, Hunter Safety courses are good for 4 hours credit. Non-Resident permits will be $300 and the same training requirement. No reciprocity agreements have been announced yet.

That makes us the last state to allow carry of any kind and, to date, no state I'm aware of has had a serious effort to repeal their CCW laws. Even the ones with the loudest protestors here on DU seem to just talk about it and never seem to quite get around to starting a single petition. I guess whining online and letting Bloomberg pick up the tab is still easier than standing in the snow and getting signatures.

For the last three weeks approved instructors (1800+) were allowed to apply for their own permits as a "test run" for the online system to work out any kinks and there were a few that are now cleared up. The biggest question for the new system is handling the load. But the State Police caught up with the backlog of 70,000 applications for Firearm Owners ID (FOID) cards in the last 6 weeks, so they have extra staff assigned to help with the rush they expect. New FOID applications, e.g. new gun owners, are still averaging around 40,000+ a month

The first CCW permits won't be issued for around 90 days, for those that included digital fingerprints, or 120 days for those that didn't. This waiting period allows local law enforcement to review and object to the issuance of the permit based on local CLEO experience and records.

Tom Dart, Sheriff of Cook County, tried to file a blanket objection for anyone from Cook County or Chicago and was turned down by the Illinois State Police twice. He was told he can make a case by case objection if he wants to but blanket objections are not going to be allowed since it would violate the Shall Issue law approved by the supermajority of Dems in the legislature.

[Loudly]

1. Just more NRA foolishness.

And more profits to guns and ammo makers and sellers.

Expedience only, for political and economic reasons.

Not a "right" in any Constitutional sense of the word.

[Straw Man]

4. I'm sure Shares United would agree.

But the Supreme Court wouldn't.

[Loudly]

7. Dred Scott v. Sandford, baby.

Plessy v. Ferguson.

[DonP]

10. Heller vs. DC, McDonald vs. Chicago "Baby"!

[gejohnston]

11. false equivelence

McDonald overturned one that was worse than those two.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Cruikshank

Plus, you are comparing two that did not recognize rights, vs one or two that does.

[Loudly]

16. Guns and ammo are detrimental to genuine rights.

Punishment for misuse after the fact is not justice.

[gejohnston]

17. no they are not

read some of the Enlightenment thinkers like Locke, Paine, and Beccaria. As Walter Mondale said
"Gun bans don't disarm criminals, gun bans attract them."

[Loudly]

18. The general unavailability of guns and ammo is the ideal.

Japan is the model.

[gejohnston]

19. I lived in Japan

Here we say "the squeaky wheel gets the grease" there they say "the nail that sticks out gets pounded down."
In Japan there is no exclusionary rule, meaning illegal searches are admissible. You have no right to a lawyer while being "questioned", often physical and brutal. You can be held up to a month in solitary without being charged. Forced confessions are admissible in court. You have no right to a fair trial. Three judges decide your case, acquittals are rare even when the evidence warrants it because acquittals are bad for careers. There are a lot of cool things about Japan, but liberal democracy it isn't. It is democratic, sure, but not liberal.
Do they have fewer murders? Murder/suicides are not unusual, where both parties are suicides using different terms for suicide. For example, if dad kills wife and two kids it is defined as one voluntary suicide and three not voluntary suicides, not one suicide and three murders. (in the UK, it is one suicide and one murder because they go by number of cases, not the number of dead bodies.) Cold cases are often written off as suicide.

Iceland and Norway have more gun owners per capita than Florida, and have lower murder rates than Japan.
Wyoming, Czech Republic, Switzerland, Finland, and Canada to a lesser degree is ideal.

[Straw Man]

20. So did I.

And you forgot the part about capital punishment by hanging.

Prisoners on death row are kept in solitary confinement in tiny cells and have no communication with anyone except for infrequent supervised visits with their families. The only time they leave their cells is for biweekly exercise periods; exercising in their cells is not allowed. Essentially they just sit there in little cubicles and go slowly insane.

Hangings are carried out in secret, with no advance notification to the families or the lawyers of the condemned, who are only told when the sentence has been carried out and the body is available to be claimed. The condemned themselves do not know when they will be hanged until they are actually being taken to the gallows. Thus they wake up each day not knowing if that is the day that they will die.

Japan is the model.

Oh yes. They are so much more civilized.

[Loudly]

22. The model for gun tolerance! Namely, zero.

Zero guns = zero shootings.

Whatever problems exist with their criminal justice system, guns are not their problem.

Such lamentation is a red herring.

[gejohnston]

26. they do have shootings

it is possible to get illegal guns. When I was on Okinawa, there was at least one shooting, a Yakuza hit.
When I was there, some army types from Tori Station were caught by Japanese police and Army CID buying guns made in clandestine gun factories in Cebu for $20 and selling them to the Yakuza for over $1K.
They do have a problem with drugs, organized crime, and a nuclear industry that bribes inspectors. The latter is infinitely worse than guns.

[beevul]

27. There will NEVER be zero guns, shares.

But go ahead, keep hunting that whale.

[Straw Man]

28. You miss the point again, Shares.

"No guns" does not equal no murders. It does not equal no suicides. It does not even equal no shootings, as has been pointed out to you.

The salient point here -- no red herring at all -- is your unabashed admiration for a repressive state. Japan's gun laws harken back to feudal times, when guns were seen as a threat to the status quo in that they would interfere with a samurai's sacred right to behead any peasant who looked at him wrong. That's what you're extolling.

Ever wonder why Japanese cops carry guns? You'd think they wouldn't need to, what with that disarmed populace and all. And the army? They've got plenty of guns despite the "Peace Constitution." Then there's the yakuza, who seem to find all the Chinese Makarovs they need to carry on their gang wars. So it's not that there aren't any guns in Japan; it's just that they're all in the hands of criminals and the organs of state security. And that's what you want to emulate?

Doesn't sound very progressive to me.

[Lizzie Poppet]

30. Grossly inapplicable example.

Japan is an island, with a history of restricting weapons of any kind to a small elite minority of the population. The US is a continent-spanning state with porous borders and a history of access to weapons (and with well over 300 million firearms already in civilian hands). Japan may be some sort of idealized "model" for anti-gun zealots, but it is in no way an attainable model for something the US might become.

[Straw Man]

21. Justice.

Punishment for misuse after the fact is not justice.

You are very wrong. Punishment before the fact is not justice. The concept of "pre-crime" only exists in brutal dictatorships.

Don't confuse the world of Minority Report with what is supposed to be a liberal democracy.

[Loudly]

23. Inability to obtain guns and ammo is punishment?

I call it social common sense and safety from the vain caprice of shooters.

[Straw Man]

25. Denial of effective means of self-defense ...

... is most decidedly punishment. It's something that masters do to slaves.

I believe in freedom and personal responsibility. You call that a "vain caprice." Telling. Very telling.

[friendly_iconoclast]

34. I do hope shares launders his shirts in cold water

Otherwise, the black will fade...

[friendly_iconoclast]

33. -1. Planted axiom

[Straw Man]

14. I think ...

... that gejohnston has it right. You're trying to compare decision that deny rights to decisions that affirm them.

Two very different animals, baby. But thanks for Sharing.

[DonP]

9. How about those "phony Dems" that wrote and passed these laws?

Since the gun and ammo manufacturers are already working 3 shifts a day with overtime on the weekends to keep up with demand, they can only make more money by raising prices.

Why not make a point of criticizing the people that actually wrote and passed this new law? C'mon be a leader on this.

We can't wait to hear what the political expediency was for the Dem super majority in the legislature in deep blue Illinois that wrote and passed this? So you're saying that the Illinois Dems are now sucking up to the NRA? Please name names so we all know who to blame and replace with "better" candidates. We all await your analysis and vision.

Hate to break the news Shares, but your "imagination" is still not sound grounds for either legislation or legal opinion. Shock and amazement, but no one in power seems to care what you think or your what your fevered interpretation of constitutional rights is.

You let us know when anyone actually thinks you have a point besides the obvious one you seem to have.

[Loudly]

24. The NRA wrote the legislation.

And the 7th Circuit Appellate Court required the legislature to pass it.

Hey, I know people want to buy guns and ammo.

They're terribly misguided, and are dragging society backwards.

[DonP]

32. Sure they did - You are a great humorist

If the NRA wrote it it wouldn't require 16 hours of training or have as many exceptions and exclusions.

Yes the court ordered it because the ban was clearly unconstitutional. But you keep living with the fantasy that it wasn't really written by Dems, passed by Dems in and all Blue state.

Or ... are you saying that Illinois Dems and our state party leaders are subservient to the NRA? Gee, bad mouthing Dems, that could get you thrown off DU ... again.

So what are you doing, besides whining about it to get all those concealed carry laws repealed? How many petitions have you started? How many grass roots organization do you belong to, that are working to repeal carry laws? Please "Share" with us all of your activist work?

You're all hat and no horse.

[Gidney N Cloyd]

2. Golly, I feel safer already.

[gejohnston]

3. INTERPOL's Secretary General

and Detroit's police chief see it a step in the right direction.

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/exclusive-westgate-interpol-chief-ponders-armed-citizenry/story?id=20637341
http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20140103/METRO01/301030038#ixzz2pNqIMS6P

[ileus]

6. Telling citizens they have to be victims was an awful standard

to live by...

[gejohnston]

12. that is why I would never live in DC

“The problem is, if you are armed, it escalates the situation. It is much better, in my opinion, to be scared, to be frightened, and even if you have to be, to be injured, but to walk away and survive. You’ll heal, and you can replace whatever was taken away.”

District of Columbia Deputy Mayor for Public Safety, Paul Quander

[ileus]

15. he must know someone that can bring the dead back to life....

[Eleanors38]

31. "He went for a little walk!" The Mummy (1932)

[ileus]

5. citizens should have never had to fight for their right to self defense

in the first place...

Congrats to our safety minded friends in Illinois, it's been a long time coming.

Basic human rights should never be a political football.


Another plus is this open a whole new market up for conceal carry firearms, holsters, ammo. Along with those 1800 instructors who will have great FT and PT jobs training the new responsible citizens.

[sarisataka]

8. A bit pricey, otherwise

it sounds pretty good. I like the shooting standard, it seems fair. I suppose some will dislike it since the B-27 is a silhouette, though the FBI calls it a "bottle". Since an agent needs 85% to qualify, 70% should be doable for a citizen. I wouldn't mind 75% minimum score

[DonP]

13. 8,000+ applications paid for in the first 6 hours.

According to the Illinois State Police over 8,000 applications have been completed and paid for in the first 8 hours of the website being up and opened.

Some problems with uploading documents and financial transfers have come up and been corrected in real time. (Like they wouldn't figure out a way to get the money as quickly as they can.)

Credit to the ISP for figuring out ways to make it work. Example: If you don't have a scanner at home, take a pic with your smart phone, download it to your computer and send the jpg to them.

[NaturalHigh]

29. About time.